Main Outcome Measures Children’s exposure to food-related advertising on television with nutritional assessments for food and beverage products for grams of saturated fat, sugar, and fiber and milligrams of sodium.

Results Children aged 2 to 5 and 6 to 11 years saw, respectively, on average, 10.9 and 12.7 food-related television advertisements daily in 2009, down 17.8% and 6.9% from 2003. Exposure to food and beverage products high in saturated fat, sugar, or sodium fell 37.9% and 27.7% but fast-food advertising exposure increased by 21.1% and 30.8% among 2- to 5- and 6- to 11-year-olds, respectively, between 2003 and 2009. In 2009, 86% of ads seen by children were for products high in saturated fat, sugar, or sodium, down from 94% in 2003.

Conclusions Exposure to unhealthy food and beverage product advertisements has fallen, whereas exposure to fast-food ads increased from 2003 to 2009. By 2009, there was not a substantial improvement in the nutritional content of food and beverage advertisements that continued to be advertised and viewed on television by US children.

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Strategies to promote healthy eating and physical activity in schools and other settings are effective in preventing childhood obesity, says an updated Cochrane Collaboration review released this week.

The publication is an update of a 2001 review that reached more equivocal conclusions when last updated in 2005. It includes 55 studies of interventions targeting children up to age 18 years, with most involving children aged 6 to 12 years.

The review’s lead author, Professor Elizabeth Waters, the Jack Brockhoff chair of child public health at the University of Melbourne, told the BMJ that the most effective interventions sought to change social and physical environments and norms, rather than just individual behaviour.

These included policies for healthy eating and physical activity in schools and early childcare settings, support for teachers and other staff to do health promotion, and support from parents and at home for children to eat better, move more, and spend less time looking at screens.